Super Robot Wars(スーパーロボット大戦,Sūpā Robotto Taisen?) is a series of tactical role-playingvideo games produced by Banpresto, which is now a Japanese division of Namco Bandai. The main feature of the franchise is having a story that crosses over several popular mechaanime, manga and video games, allowing characters and mecha from different titles to team up or battle one another. The first game in the franchise was released for the NintendoGame Boy on April 20, 1991. Later spawning numerous games that were released on various consoles and handhelds. Due to the nature of crossover games and licensing involved, only three games have been released outside of Japan, these games only feature Banpresto's own original characters and mecha. The franchise celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2011.

All the games follow a basic structure: when a stage begins, the character receives introductory dialogue between playable characters, leading to the scenario on the battlefield. To complete a scenario, the player must accomplish scenario objectives. Some scenarios are longer, with multi-part missions or have new objectives added as the story unfolds. On battlefield, the player and enemy take turns to order their units with commands available, such as movement, attacking, forming squads and casting "Spirit Commands", a set of magic-like spells unique to each pilot. Once the scenario is cleared, more dialogue is exchanged between characters before the player is taken to an intermission menu. Here, units can be upgraded or optional parts installed, characters' stats and skills can be changed or upgraded, and other maintenance actions can be performed before the player continues on with the game.

Many games also have hidden features that can only be gained through a special sequence of events or completing optional challenging objectives. Some of these bonuses include extra stages, different endings, captured enemy machines and special upgrade for specific units, such as the IWSP Pack for the GAT-X105 Strike Gundam. In some games, these are called "Skill Points" ("Battle Masteries" in the North American localizations) and the difficulty of the game increases accordingly.

In most games, the player selects or is given a Banpresto original character and machine, who is connected to the overarching storyline which ties together the events of the constituent anime for the game. Some featured anime also has their plots intertwined: in Super Robot Wars Alpha, the White Fang from New Mobile Report Gundam Wing allies with Paptimus Scirocco's rebellion from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, resulting in the two enemy forces working together.

One noteworthy aspect of the Super Robot Wars games is that character death happens rarely. Players will often have the chance to prevent the death of an ally, as depicted in his or her animated series, while some games take this a step further and prevent heroic deaths freely, without extra effort on the player's part. Additionally, some enemies can be convinced (usually those who are not completely villainous, or who have good intentions) to abandon the antagonists and join the player, whether they do so in their respective series or not. When these concepts are combined, players can create a team that has no chance of existing within the original series.

Battles in Super Robot Wars are turn-based. The player usually gets to move their forces first, one at a time, then control switches to the game's AI.

When a unit attacks, the target reacts by blocking (increasing defense against the attack), or evading (reducing the attack's chance to hit), or countering (striking back with their own attack). Once chosen, the battle animation is played out. If the player unit is not destroyed and successfully damaged the enemy, then the unit gains experience points. And if the enemy is destroyed, the player will also receive money and optional parts. In later games, "Support Attacks/Defense" (where an adjacent unit that has not taken its turn yet can make a free attack/jump in front of an ally and take reduced damage) and simultaneous attacks by two or more units were introduced.

All battles are carried out either the terrain of land, air, sea or space, which affects the performance of machines, pilots and weapons in various ways. For example, most Gundam characters excel in space combat, but suffer major handicaps underwater, and techniques requiring an atmosphere, such as the Mazinger Z's "Rust Hurricane", are unusable in space. The battlefield also contains objects which grant various effects. For example besides providing repair and energy refill, a military base also provides land units with defense bonus but will hinder them from moving freely.

In addition to standard mecha and vehicle units, the player often has one or more "Battleships", air- or spacecraft units such as the White Base, SDF-1 Macross or Daiku-Maryu that in addition to powerful long-ranged attacks, can also dock other units to refill energy, repair damage, and in some games, even switch between active and non-active units onto and off the battlefield. Battleships are powerful units, but losing one in battle is often an instant-loss situation in many stages.

Units in-game are generally separated into two categories: "super-type" and "real-type". Super robots are heavy units with exceptionally high hit points and armor, and powerful, close-range weapons with high energy cost. On the other hand, real robots are light units which are faster and more agile, but have less armor and hit points, relying instead on dodging attacks. Their weapons have longer range and better accuracy at the cost of doing less damage per hit. Some units are treated as "support units", regenerating hit points and/or energy to allies, while battleships and carriers serve as transports or to resupply all units.

Though every unit takes a single grid on the tactical map and has little visual difference in battle animations, a larger unit gains defensive and offensive bonus against smaller units, but carry a disadvantage to evasion and accuracy. In later titles, certain attacks can bypass the size attribute, nullifying the effect of size in combat.

Some units have other unique characteristics: for example, Getter Robo can transform into different forms with new weapons and different attributes. To give the player more freedom in customization, some pilots are able to switch into other machines from the same series, such as placing MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam pilot Kamille Bidan into Judau Ashta's MSZ-010 Double Zeta Gundam.

Weapons carry various attributes other than range, accuracy modifier and attack power. All weapons can be divided into melee and shooting categories that determine its effectiveness by pilots' status. In some games weapons are divided into categories such as "missile" and "beam" which are less effective against opponents equipped with, for instance, jamming technology or reflective armour. Some weapons can be used after a unit has moved, while others can only be performed while remaining stationary. Other attributes can be effected by terrain or a target's defensive ability. In addition, some units make use of "MAP Weapons" which affect multiple squares at once, with some damaging everything in the area and others, such as Cybuster's Cyflash, ignoring allies. Some games feature weapons which inflict status effects on enemies that drain their energy, weaken their armor or damage the pilot's stats. Some pilots have special stats and skills that allow them to use specialized weapons, such as the "Newtype" ability being required to use the funnel weapons on the MSN-04 Sazabi or the RX-93 Nu Gundam.

As larger storage media became common from fifth generation consoles, fully animated battle sequences complete with detailed graphics, whether larger 2-D sprites, or 3-D graphics, such as the Dreamcast port of Super Robot Wars Alpha, were implemented with voice acting. The voices were provided by the same voice actors, if available, as the one in the broadcast of the anime. Some games contain CG mini-movies, depicting a certain mecha's dramatic appearance and/or transformation during the stage. Since many of the voice actors featured have worked in various anime, the games include in-jokes concerning their other roles: Amuro Ray from Gundam and Misato Katsuragi from Evangelion flirt often, referring to their voice acting roles as Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon, respectively. Hikaru Midorikawa, the voice actor for Heero Yuy (from Gundam Wing), is a huge fan of the Super Robot Wars series; in fact, he volunteers to do extra lines for no charge, and has done beta testing for Banpresto's games, with a blog alongside Banpresto's website.[1]

Since the 4th Super Robot Wars, many games feature a database of every character and unit appearing in the title. The database entries are written in the context of the character/unit's original story, regardless of how it is altered in the game. Players usually gain access to the profiles of units and characters already encountered during gameplay and must play through the game several times in order to complete it.

Most are standalone games, whose background stories may involve the plots of the included series, but no other Super Robot Wars titles. However, there are at least five main continuities with an overall storyline:

Classic

Consists of the 2nd, the 3rd, EX, F and F Final games (in that order). F and F Final replaced the 4th, while 2G is not considered canon, due to its non-inclusion in the Complete Box set. The side-story Masō Kishin - The Lord Of Elemental is divided into two parts: "Part One" occurs before the 2nd and "Part Two" after the 4th (4th was released before F and F Final). The primary antagonist organization of this series is known as DC (Divine Crusaders).

Alpha

Consists of Alpha, Alpha Gaiden, Alpha 2 and Alpha 3 games (in that order). "Part One" of Masō Kishin - The Lord Of Elemental also provides relevant information, taking place before Alpha.

Compact 2

Compact 2 was released as three games for the WonderSwan; the trilogy was later compiled with updated visuals and sound as Impact. Despite the sharing of gameplay mechanics between all of the Wonderswan games, and the similarities between Impact and MX, Compact 2 and Impact are not tied to any other games in the series.

Original Generation

Starring "Banpresto Originals", this timeline draws upon from all previous continuities. Both Original Generation games were compiled with updated visuals and sound as Super Robot Wars Original Generations, followed by the sequel Super Robot Wars Original Generation Gaiden, the remake version of Masō Kishin - The Lord Of Elemental, Masō Kishin 2: Revelation of Evil God, 2nd Super Robot Wars Original Generation, Masō Kishin 3: Pride of Justice and Masō Kishin F: Coffin of The End. Also part of the Original Generation series is the Endless Frontier series, composing of Endless Frontier and Endless Frontier EXCEED, which is set after Original Generation Gaiden. This continuity is the only one to have had titles officially released in English.

Z

The most recent continuity, which consists of Z, Z Special Disk, Z2, and Z3 in that order. The story focuses on the Twelve Spheres, which play an important part in the game's story line.

The original SRW featured Mazinger Z, Getter Robo and the earliest incarnations of Mobile Suit Gundam. This began a form of tradition wherein a Mazinger, a Getter and a Universal Century Gundam series would always appear in some capacity, forming what fans call the "Holy Trinity"; however, newer handheld titles began omitting one or more of these series in favor of increased focus on newer properties. In later incarnations, Banpresto has expanded their original horizons, including Manga like Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam in Alpha 2, video games (like Virtual On in Alpha 3), and cancelled series (like Kanzen Shouri Daiteioh in NEO). In Super Robot Wars J, Banpresto included Tekkaman Blade, a series which contains armored warriors but no mecha; this would later be followed by Detonator Orgun in SRW W and Fight! Iczer One and Iczer Reborn (which have mecha but also see their protagonists fight on foot) in SRW L.

Since the second game, the series has also included a number of original characters and mecha designed specifically for each game. These serve as viewpoint characters for the player, who follows the events of the game through their perspective. Most games also will end with an original threat that may ally itself with other villains from the series' involved, and usually serves as the final villain(s) in the game. These heroes and villains are collectively known as Banpresto Originals.

Many mecha titles included are released only in Japan and the number of titles involved within a single game means complicated rights and licensing issues when releasing it elsewhere (a problem that also affects other games, such as Jump Super Stars).

Thus far, only Original Generation games are officially released for the English market by Atlus USA. The titles of the games are given as Super Robot Taisen, possibly to avoid potential confusion with the British television series, Robot Wars. The games do not have the licensing problems other games may have since only original creations not from any anime or manga series are used in the lineup, thus making it the first game in the series to be released outside of the Asian market.[2] Atlus also released Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier for the Nintendo DS on April 28, 2009.[3]

Masō Kishin Cybuster is a loose adaptation on the story of the first original Banpresto mecha in Super Robot Wars into a 26-episode series, featuring characters inspired by the allies of the Cybuster's pilot Masaki Andoh and original characters created for the anime.

There have been several Manga adaptations that retell the stories of the Super Robot Wars series. Super Robot Wars Divine Wars(スーパーロボット大戦OG ディバイン・ウォーズ,Sūpā Robotto Taisen Ō Jī Dibain Wōzu?) by Akihiro Kimura tells the story of the Divine Wars anime over 6 volumes published from 2006 to 2009. Meanwhile Super Robot Wars Divine Wars - Record of ATX(スーパーロボット大戦OG ディバイン・ウォーズ Record of ATX,Sūpā Robotto Taisen Ō Jī Dibain Wōzu Recōdo Obu Ē Tī Ekkusu?) is manga series by Tatsunosuke Yatsufusa that tells a similar story but from the ATX Team's perspective. Super Robot Wars OG Chronicle(スーパーロボット大戦OGクロニクル,Sūpā Robotto Taisen Ō Jī Kuronikuru?) is a series of short stories that take place across the Original Generation timeline, written and drawn by various authors, some of the stories from OG Chronicle were incorporated in to the video game Super Robot Wars Original Generation Gaiden. Chokijin RyuKoOh Denki(超機人 龍虎王伝奇,Chōkijin Ryūkoō Denki?), is a 2 volume series by Masaaki Fujihara tells the background story for the original machines known as the Chokijin.

SRWOG Net Radio - Umasugi Wave(スパロボOGネットラジオ うますぎWAVE,Suparobo Ō Jī Neto Rajio Umasugi Wēbu?) began to air to go along with the release of the Divine Wars anime. The show has been airing since January 2007 with four regular hosts, Tomokazu Sugita, Masaaki Endoh, Mai Aizawa and Rie Saitou. The show often features series' producer Takanobu Terada as a special guest. After Divine Wars ended, the show carried on and was often used to regularly feature and promoted up and coming video game titles.

The games' main influence is the creation of animated shows influenced by original units and characters created for the games. The best examples are Getter Robo Armageddon, Shin Getter Robo vs Neo Getter Robo and the MazinkaiserOVA, released in the United States in 2002. Shin Getter Robo first appeared in Ken Ishikawa's manga for Getter Robo Go, then became by its apparition in various Super Robot Wars games until receiving its aforementioned OVAs. Mazinkaiser appeared for the first time in Super Robot Wars F Final, released for the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation in 1998, as an upgrade to the original Mazinger Z. Mazinger Z writer and illustrator, Go Nagai, eventually implements it into his manga as the prototype of the other Mazinger machines.